More than 100,000 men, women and children apply for refuge or
seek asylum in the United States every year. Many have suffered
devastating experiences, from aggravated rape to seeing members of
their family killed. The Survivors Center estimates that roughly
15,000 resettled refugees in Western New York alone were
traumatized or tortured in their home countries.

Established in 2014, the Survivors Center is a joint project
between UB and four other Western New York social service agencies.
In addition to providing medical and psychiatric referrals to
refugees, it is one of four centers in Western New York authorized
by the U.S government to help asylum seekers gain legal status.
Whereas refugees are screened before coming to the U.S. and
automatically become eligible for citizenship on arrival, asylum
seekers make their way here on their own; to stay legally, they
must prove their cases of trauma—and this is where Griswold
and her students come in.

Using the Istanbul Protocol, a set of international guidelines
endorsed by Physicians for Human Rights and used to
document torture and its effects, they conduct extensive forensic
medical exams. Each interview entails several hours of gently and
sensitively coaxing out the details of the reported physical and
psychological trauma. These details are put into an affidavit,
later to be used in court. Stories must match any physical and
mental scars revealed by the medical part of the exam, or the case
could fall apart.

In addition to gaining multicultural clinical experience with an
underserved population, the student volunteers—mostly from
the medical and law schools, but also from public health and even
anthropology—gain essential communication skills through
conducting these interviews. The students are, says Griswold, her
legacy; she knows some may carry on this crucial work after she
retires. Most importantly, she says, “They’ll have an
experience that shapes them forever. That’s what it’s
all about.”

So far the center has completed 17 affidavits and had one
victory. (At press time, one case is currently on appeal, while the
other 15 are pending in court.) No matter what the outcome,
Griswold says, the process itself is important. “People can
tell their stories and we can bear witness to what happened to
them.”